Public offers input on Estes transit facility

Three-day public process ends Friday

By David Persons

Trail-Gazette

Posted:
09/06/2013 09:33:51 AM MDT

Interested?

If you would like to learn more about how the public process took place, go online to the Facebook page especially designed for this topic at: https://facebook.com/pages/Estes-Park-Transit-Facility-Parking-Structure/ 522423627827147

The first day of a 3-day public process to come up with a conceptual design for the new Estes Park Transit Facility and Parking Structure went smoothly, say town officials.

"I thought it went very well," said Estes Park Town Administrator Frank Lancaster late Wednesday night. "Tonight we had about 30 people show up along with the town board and the planning commission."

The proposed facility, with an approximate budget of $4.4 million, is scheduled to be built in the parking lot just east of the Estes Park Visitors Center, 500 Big Thompson Avenue.

Funding sources for the transit facility and parking structure include:

• $3 million from the Paul S. Sarbanes Transit in the Parks Program of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

• $329,000 from a Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Program grant made by the Upper Front Range Regional Planning Commission and additional funds from a CMAQ grant made by the Colorado Department of Transportation.

• $400,000 from the FASTER program of the Colorado Department of Transportation.

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• A 20 percent match of the total project cost by the Town of Estes Park from its Community Reinvestment Fund.

Lancaster said the square footage of the structure hasn't been determined yet. He said that will depend on how the building is designed and kept within budget. He added that the town would like to see it house 260 to 300 parking spaces. The public parking lot at the visitor's center currently has just 85 spaces.

The purpose of the multiple-day process is to get the public and various entities - the town board, the planning commission, and design team - involved in the design phase and come up with a preferred design concept by late today.

Most of the work during the three days involved working sessions at the Estes Park Museum with various combinations of the public, the design team, town officials and planning commission officials.

Public forums were held Wednesday and Thursday evenings from 6-8 p.m. in Town Hall rooms 202 and 203 to get public feedback. A final public forum is scheduled for 3:30-4:30 p.m. today in the Town Board room and will be live-streamed at estes.org/videos.

Lancaster said that most of the public input centered on the size of the building.

"A lot of people said it looked too big, particularly height-wise" the town administrator said. "They said anything lower than that softens the appearance. Four floors didn't go over well."

Lancaster said many talked about the mass of the facility in relationship to the adjacent visitor's center which is about 30 feet in height.

"Anything taller than that building, people didn't like," he said.

Lancaster said what little criticism he heard was constructive and positive. That's why he is optimistic that by late today, there will be preferred design.

"If it all goes to plan, and the consensus among the citizens, staff, planning commission and town board is this is a plan we can go with, then we'll start going through the process to have it formally approved," Lancaster said.

That means that the facility's owner - the town - would have to sign off on it with a location and extent approval. It would then go to the planning commission, likely in October. If the planning commission approves it, the real work could begin shortly thereafter, Lancaster said.

"We want to get started on the construction as soon as possible," Lancaster said.

The facility, if everything goes according to plan, could be completed by summer of 2014.

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